Join us for a compelling session with guest speaker Matthew James — a true trailblazer in natural products distribution — as he shares the story behind scaling a business from a small supplement and personal care distributor to a full-service distributor servicing retailers across Canada with both grocery and wellness products. This is more than a success story. It’s a playbook for transformation that you can learn from.

Key takeaways

• Key decisions and cultural shifts to grow from a limited assortment distributor to a national full-service distributor across categories.
• How innovation, technology, and modern practices like online ordering and data-driven category management fueled growth.
• What long-term private equity partnerships can offer in supporting sustainable growth.
• How to navigate the challenges of merging businesses, cultures and systems.

Who should attend

• Executives, owners, and leaders at wholesale and distribution companies aiming to scale or expand their reach nationally.
• Business development, operations, logistics, and supply-chain professionals.
• Retail buyers, vendors, brokers, or suppliers interested in insights on what it takes to work with a national full-service distributor.
• Investors, advisors, or private-equity partners evaluating or involved in growth-oriented distribution platforms.
• Entrepreneurs and growth-minded professionals looking to learn from a real-world transformation and apply best practices to their own businesses.

Why this session matters

The distribution landscape is shifting fast. Retailers are more sophisticated, customers demand speed and consistency, and supply-chain complexity continues to grow. This session offers a rare behind-the-scenes look into how to build and scale a full-service national distribution platform with both vision and execution.

Register now and unlock the lessons that turned a small distributor into Canada’s leading, full service, national distributor of natural and organic products.

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About our guest:

Matthew James

President and CEO

Matthew James has more than 30 years of experience in the natural health products industry, with over two decades dedicated specifically to building and leading a high-performance distribution organization across Canada. His expertise spans all major areas of distribution and supply chain management, including multi-facility warehousing, logistics optimization, national retail execution, vendor collaboration, and customer experience design. Matthew has led teams through sustained growth, organizational restructuring, and multiple strategic transformations, positioning Purity Life as a trusted, service-driven distributor in the natural and organic products marketplace in Canada.

About our hosts:

Ian Heller

Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer

Ian Heller joined Grainger as a part-time truck unloader in college and left fifteen years later as the VP Marketing. Since then, he's held senior executive positions at four other publicly-held firms, consulted with dozens of distributors, and continues to write and speak extensively on how AI, strategy, channel evolution, and other major trends affect the industry. Ian holds a B.A. in History from Roosevelt University and an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.

Jonathan Bein, Ph.D.

Co-Founder and Managing Partner

Jonathan Bein Ph.D. has worked with over 100 distributors to apply advanced analytics and AI to improve customer experience, define value proposition, estimate sales potential, and create digital strategy.